This week was our last of term one, before we all head out on our placements, but the baking was as full on as ever!

Monday saw us making Mexican pastries, Bath buns & Maple & Pecan loaves.  The Mexican pastries were similar to a Brioche; a sweet enriched dough, shaped in a little bun.  They were slightly sweeter than Brioche, & were topped with a sweet paste, which we coloured & shaped using a shell/conche mould.

Mexican parties, ready for baking!

Two of the pastries were topped with a chocolate based topping, others were left plain & topped with sugar nibs instead.

Next up were the Maple & Pecan loaves, & they really were gorgeous!  The maple syrup wasn't too overpowering, just a slight hint of sweetness.  We added sesame seeds to the mix, to boost the nuttiness & it really worked.  Pecans also happen to be one of my favourite nuts, so I adored this bread!

Lovely Nutty Loaves =)

The Bath buns were next; epically fruity, sugary little buns, they went down a treat as well!

Usually, at the end of the day, there are a few loaves & sweet buns left over for the staff to take home with them... There were no Bath buns left!  We had them still warm from the oven, & they really were amazing!

Tuesday we had a French baking masterclass from two guys from Moul Bie.  We used their flours to make baguettes, & a variety of other loaves. 

It was great to have more practise at moulding & cutting, & to work with French flour, but the gents from Moul Bie did kinda hog all the mixing!

Wednesday was our last day of baking, & we made Cornish Saffron Loaves, Stottie Cakes, Turkish Pide & Challah breads.

The saffron loaves were actually really nice; I wasn't sure at first as I'm not a massive fan of saffron, but the bread was lovely, sweet & fruity =)

Ready for Baking

Almost all gone!

The Stottie breads were really tasty as well, I'd heard of them before, but never tried one.  The loaves are a traditional oven bottom baked bread, & are usually flipped over halfway through baking, giving them a flattened appearance.

They were really tasty too, very light & fluffy!

The Turkish Pide breads were lovely as well; they're a flat bread with a lovely soft dough =)

They were brushed with egg wash, then topped with sesame seeds & poppy seeds & scored with a pizza cutter (to help prevent them bubbling up too much in the oven).

The Challah breads are a traditional Jewish plaited loaf, enriched with honey, eggs & butter, & they were huge!

My plait, ready for proving

They rose so much in the oven, & were a dark golden brown colour.  They're similar again to a Brioche in texture; less sweet, but very tasty!

Thursday, me & my fellow Dairy students headed off to the Good Food Show at the NEC, Birmingham, to see the World Cheese Awards, & generally have a foodie day!

The World Cheese Awards were huge! I've never seen so much cheese in one place before; all kinds of cheeses, in all shapes, sizes & flavours, from all over the world.  There were even a couple of cheeses from my home county of Shropshire; Belton Cheese Ltd's Creamy Lancashire won a gold! =D

We spent the rest of the day wandering round, looking at the stalls, & stocking up on free samples!  My favourite stall of the day was Demijohn, the liquid Deli.  They had the most wonderful drink (which will remain unspecified, because it's a Christmas gift for someone I know, & they read this blog!)

I also treated myself to a lovely raw milk goats cheese; a little pricey at £10.00, but I think it'll be a great way to introduce my family to the wonders of raw milk cheeses =)

Today is our last free study Friday, & while a few people have already gone back home to prepare for their placements, a lot of us are heading back in to School today for an epic Christmas lunch.  It's been a lovely week, a great way to end the term & it's even been a little emotional (I think it might get a bit more emotional at lunch!)

I'll post again before I start my placement, but for now, I'm going to finish my packing & head out for a last coffee with the girls before our lovely lunch =)

We finished School early today, which means I have time to tell you all about last week, before heading out for some tasty beer! =D

Last week was quite a busy week; the Welbeck Farm Shop Christmas Fair was just a few days away, & we needed to get baking, so we'd have treats to sell.  We settled for gingerbread & shortbread, as both keep well & both are tasty Christmas treats.

The class split into two groups; one tackled the gingerbread, the other the shortbread.  I was on the shortbread team, & I have never seen so much shortbread in all my life!  We made plain shortbread, which was cut into bauble, snowflake, star and shortbread boy (well, we couldn't call them 'gingerbread men' could we?) shapes.  We also made chocolate shortbread, which was cut into reindeer shapes  =)

Chocolate Shortbread Reindeer ready for baking

The team in charge of the gingerbread made the classic gingerbread men, as well as stars, candy canes, snowflakes and Christmas tree shapes =)

Gingerbread Stars, freshly dipped in chocolate

Shortbread Stars, with decoration

Gingerbread Candy Canes, with royal icing decoration

Gingerbread Christmas Tree decorations

So that was our Monday & Tuesday! All very hectic, but really rather fun =)

Wednesday we had an epic early start (circa 5.40am) for a trip down to Mono Bakery Equipment in Swansea.  They showed us round the factory where all the equipment is made, which was really interesting.  They also showed us a few of their ovens, spiral mixers, pastry dispensers, & the oven you'll find in most supermarkets, which was technologically very impressive, but from a food perspective, very depressing =(

The only human intervention in the creation of the bread, using those machines, is to put all the ingredients (including big bags of scary additives, improvers & preservatives) in the mixing bowl & press the big green 'start' button.  Less than an hour later, the fully developed dough emerges from the machine, all ready for baking... Very sad times indeed...

The saddest thing is, until you've tasted real, actual, hand-made, beautiful bread, you'd think the stuff from the supermarkets was alright.  I certainly used to.  Now I know I won't go near another supermarket loaf again!

But onto happier subjects, like Thursdays baking!  We made some lovely savoury goods, including beef & ale pies, Cornish pasties, pork pies & sausage rolls.

All my lovely baked meaty goods

We used hot water crust & savoury shortcrust pastry, both of which were fun to work with.  It was a really great day, a lovely end to a busy week.  All we had to do now was get ready for the Christmas Fair!

Originally we were supposed to be assessed on this fair, but collectively we decided that one week really wasn't enough time for us to create our products, complete market research, write reports etc; it was just too much work with not enough notice.  But, we were still keen to sell at the market, to get some experience at it  =)

I was on the Sunday team, & we turned up bright & early, fearing the worst for our stall after epic heavy rain & wind the previous night.  Sadly, the gazebo didn't survive, & we were relocated to just inside the farm shop doors.  We weren't really sure whether this was a good thing or not, but eventually we got our strategy right, & by the time the fair closed, we'd made just over £400!  Taking costings into account, that left us with £320 odd, all of which will go to Maire Curie Cancer Care =)

Sara on the stall, ready for a full day's trading!

That just about covers last week, so I'm almost up to date! (Hurrah!) 

Tomorrow I should be able to start up on this week, let you know what we've been doing in this, our final week before we head off on our placements =)

I really must apologise, I have been a very bad blogger recently, but I do have some genuine reasons, which I will set out below =)

Firstly, myself & my fellow students went off to Lille, France for a week, & while there was Internet available & I took my laptop, the slightly dodgy electrics in the hotel blew our adaptors two days in =/

Secondly, the week after getting back from France was full of epic report & essay writing.  I had a crazy yeast report to get in, then the major assignment for the first term; an 1,500 word comparison of roller & stone ground milling.

Finally, we've had the Welbeck Farm Shop Christmas Market to prepare for & attend.  Plus, my lovely boyfriend came to visit, so all in all I've been a very busy bunny.

So clearly I have a lot to catch up on, & I'm not going to attempt to do it all in one go!  Tonight I'm just going to cover France =)

We set off bright & early on Monday morning, & by evening we had crossed the border & were checking into the hotel.  We had a staggered morning on Tuesday; because of Mark's (our bus driver) working constraints, he couldn't take us all to Lesaffe training centre.  Instead, two of us (me & Tory) went in first thing with Wayne, David & Sarah, & the others caught various taxis.

Once we were all at the training centre & had had our breakfasts of pain au chocolates & coffee, we were ready to begin!  As you might expect, we made a lot of baguettes!

We experimented with different types of baguette dough, from a #no time' dough, ready in a few hours, to overnight fermentations with & without improvers, & a couple of sourdoughs.

It was really great to have more experience with moulding & cutting baguettes; they're such a tricky bread to get right, it was satisfying to get to make lots in one day, & to see them getting better & better  =)

Across the three days we also made Pain au Levains, Pain du Campagne's, Ciabatta's, Pandoro, Panetonne & Croissants!

Pain du Campagne dough moulded into a variety of shapes

Ciabattas!

Pandoro Mushrooms =)

Chocolate Chip Panettone dough

Croissants

I thoroughly enjoyed our time at Lesaffe; everyone was so friendly & helpful, even the staff who weren't there specifically to help us found time to offer tips & advice =)

We had some fairly interesting evenings too!  Joe bought his lion onesie to France, & by the time we left on Friday morning, everyone (bar Wayne) had worn it!  Loren wore it the whole way back to School on the minibus!  We got some interesting looks from passing cars, especially with Evil Wayne staring out of the window!

Wayne, & his long lost twin, Evil Wayne (can you guess who's who?)

In some ways I think the trip was as rewarding & fun as it was because I'm with so many awesome people on this course.  Everyone gets along so well, & it's amazing how close we've all gotten in such a short space of time =)

Amongst my (none baking related) highlights of the trip are: 

• The lion onesie
• Interesting French-English translations of menus
• Excellent cheap fizzy wine
• The 'Mexican' drawing game...
• Static-hair balloon attacks

Next time, I'll be covering last week & the epic preparation for the Christmas market!  I can't promise it'll be done tomorrow because we're off to the launch of Welbeck Brewery's Christmas beer, Santa Baby, but you never know =D

Oh my, it's been quite a busy week, so I must apologise for not updating sooner, I am a bad blogger... =(

The week started off calmly enough; we conducted the last of our bread experiments, this time looking at the effects of levels of sugar, with both a standard yeast & an osmotolerant yeast, & vinegar in dough =)

Suffice to say, vinegar makes dough very sticky & almost impossible to handle!  Excess sugar tends to leave you with extremely caramelised crusts & vinegar just leaves the loaf looking rather sad...

We also set down some sourdoughs using packet cultures; not quite in keeping with artisan ideals, but still... =)

Tuesday the sourdoughs were ready to use, and we were each able to make up any sort of bread we fancied, so long as it used the sourdoughs somewhere.  I chose to make up some cottage loaves; I hadn't had chance to do a cottage loaf yet, but the shaping looked like fun & everyone raved about previous cottage loaves that had been made.

I made a standard cottage loaf using a sourdough culture, & two smaller loaves with fig & walnut =)

They came out looking pretty good, & were really rather tasty too!

Tuesday night was, quite frankly, horrendous.

The accommodation at Creswell is great, on the surface... But the longer we've been here, more & more problems have arisen... Epic bathroom leaks, boilers which are temperamental to say the least, to smoke alarms which go off for no apparent reason.  And the smoke alarms were the problem Tuesday...

They were supposed ti have been fixed during the day, but they went off again at 8pm, then 9pm, then 12pm, then every 20 minutes after, all night long, meaning neither Loren or I got any sleep, at all!  So Wednesday at School was interesting to say the least!

Feeling rather emotional, I managed to solider on through, & tried my hand at baguettes again =)  We worked up two batches, one with a traditional poolish & not so traditional sourdough base, the second with a pure sourdough base.  The first batch moved as expected & we ended up with some, well, not appalling baguettes!

They look like such a simple bread, but the moulding & cutting is quite tricky to get the hang of... o.0

We also looked at beer barm breads, made using a yeast culture from the Welbeck Brewery, just across the yard from the School =)

(I don;t have any pictures unfortunately; in my sleep deprived state I completely forgot to pick up my camera!)

Thankfully by the time we got home, the dodgy smoke alarms had been removed & new ones installed, so I actually got some sleep!! =D

Thursday arrived & I was feeling really rather chipper =D

We had flour confectionery today, & the class was taught by Emmanuel, who usually runs all the short courses at the School.  On the menu today were double cream scones, fruited scone wedges, raspberry buns, soda breads, then a whole load of hot plate goods; crumpets, pikelets & scotch pancakes =D

The soda breads came out looking & tasting fab...

The scones however, were another matter...

They look good don't they?  They tasted pretty good too, the first couple of bites at least, then you were hit by this awful chemically aftertaste!  It was such a shame, so many lovely looking scones, & none of them were edible!

We couldn't quite figure it out at first; we decided it was definitely a problem with the baking powder, but was it the quantity, or had it gone off somehow?

We persevered, & made up the raspberry buns, which also came out looking awesome =D

Admittedly the picture above is of them prior to baking, but you get the idea =)

Sadly though, they suffered from the same unusual & unpleasant taste... So Emmanuel suggested making them up again, but with a much reduced percentage of baking powder,  The second time round, they tasted delicious!  Success!

After that we moved onto the hot plate goods.  Crumpets & pikelets are made from the same mix; if they're made free form, like a pancake, then they're a pikelet, if they're made in a ring, they're a crumpet =)

The crumpets were really fun to make, & actually quite tasty =)  (I'm not generally a fan of crumpets, but these were way better then anything you could buy in a supermarket!)

Friday was a free study day, but a few of us did make it into School for research & a tasty lunch.  There we found Emmanuel, conducting experiments of the scones to determine if it was the quantity of baking powder, or the powder itself causing the problem.

My fellow students & I conducted the taste test, all in the name of science of course, & turns out the quantity is just fine.  The problem was with that particular batch of baking powder!  Very odd really, considering it was in date & we'd used it before with no issues, but apparently these things happen sometimes...

Friday night I had my second shift in the Welbeck Bakehouse.  We started at 6pm, & I was set to work laying out the croissants, tea cakes, chelsea buns & pain au raisins ready for baking.  Then I scaled & mixed up a batch of mince pie mix, before scaling & mixing up a batch of sweet pastry, making up some marzipan, helping to shape various loaves, & brushing the freshly baked foccacias with olive oil!

I had a really fun night, lots of hard work again, & it was great to do different things.  I think a part of me would have liked to do more scaling & shaping of dough, but most of that went to Tory, my companion for the evening.  It was Tory's first shift in the Bakehouse, so it makes sense that she'd get more time on scaling etc  =)

We finished up at 2.15am, with a warm almond croissant & olive bread each to take home, so despite some shaky beginnings, it's been a pretty good week =)

We're off to France on Monday, & I'll be taking my laptop, but I'm not sure yet how often I'll get to update.  I do promise to do my best though =D  There may even be a picture of me in a beret!

Apologies for the late update, but it's been a long, busy week!

Tuesday was another day of experimenting, this time with levels of hydration in bread.  We made a control loaf with 66% hydration, then one with 45% hydration, 55% hydration, 85% hydration & one with 100% hydration.

The 45% hydration dough was so difficult to work!  It had no flexibility or elasticity & wouldn't mould at all.  The 55% hydration was better, but still tricky to work.  The 85% hydration was a soft, wet dough, but it moulded fairly well & would hold its shape.  The 100% hydration was more like a cake batter than anything else!  It had no strength at all & we had to pour it into the tin!

Once all the loaves were baked & cooled, we sliced & compared them, just like we did with Monday's loaves =)

It was easier to see the differences in the loaves this time, as the water content alters the structure of the loaf, as the picture below shows =D

Wednesday was sort of a freestyle day, so we took the opportunity to experiment with patisserie!

I decided to make some Sable pastry, as we didn't have the ingredients to make it in the last patisserie session.  Normally, Sable pastry is piped into small biscuits, but I also wanted to perfect my creme patissiere, so I made some tartlets out of it instead!

I used the brioche a tete tins to mould the pastry, & they actually came out really well!  Before I moulded & baked the tartlets, I made up the creme patissiere so it would have time to cool & thicken in the fridge before being piped.

When we've made creme pat in class before, it hasn't quite worked properly; the first time we used gluten free flour, which really didn't help!  Other times I think we were just too cautious, & didn't cook it for long enough.

This time though, it worked a treat! =D

The tartlet cases came out really well too; below is a picture of the cases filled with creme pat, ready for decoration!

I love how striking they are, with the pale yellow creme pat & the rich chocolate pastry =D

I was really quite please with how they came out, they look so pretty! =D  (They're pretty tasty too!)

Thursday we were back in the Dairy, at long last!  There was some sort of hiccup in the scheduling, so we actually haven't had a minor session since the first week!

It really was great to be back in the Dairy, to actually get to make some cheese & see the process work properly.  The cheeses we made in the first week weren't quite as they should have been; the milk overtook us & we ended up with a firmer cheese than we should have...

This time though, we were ahead of the milk all the way!  We heated it to 30oC, added our started cultures & the rennet, then left it to do it's thing while we went & learnt about the history of cheese.

They don't really know where cheese first originated, but they suspect it may have been ancient Mesopotamia, back when they used animal stomachs to transport & contain water & other liquids.  The theory is that an ancient Mesopotamian went off on his horse for some epic long journey with a stomach full of milk (yum), & by the time he got to his destination, he had a stomach full of cheese! (yum yum)  But who knows =)

Once the milk had formed curds, we sliced them into cubes, then ladled them into our moulds.  This was a really relaxing zen-like process; you don't rush as you have to be quite gentle with the curds =)

Then, we left them to drain & settle.  They weren't quite firm enough for us to turn before the end of the day, but they were looking great & should be ready in a couple of weeks =)

Now I'm looking forward to a lazy weekend & a loooooooong lie in tomorrow, course I might just have to make some honeycomb ready for the bonfire Monday night!  =D